Business & Finance

September 2, 2004

By Compiled from wire service reports by Robert Kilborn and Ross Atkin

United Airlines said it needs to "revisit areas where we ... thought we had already squeezed out all the savings available to us" - a decision that's expected to result in 6,000 more job cuts, the Financial Times reported. The carrier's financial problems, made worse by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, already have reduced its payroll from 104,000 to 62,000 people. The latest measures, part of an ongoing reorganization plan, could reduce maintenance, call center, and ticket distribution operations, reports said. United announced earlier this week that 375 flight attendants would be recalled from voluntary furlough. Still, leaders of their union voted unanimously Tuesday to seek the ouster of chief executive Glenn Tilton and his management team, citing what they called strategies that are "reckless and incompetent."

More than $7 billion worth of shares, the world's biggest stock sale this year, are to be offered to institutional investors by France Telecom, the state-owned company announced. The sale effectively will privatize the company, lowering the Paris government's stake in it from 52.5 percent to between 43.5 and 41 percent. In July, the European Union ruled that an $11 billion government bailout of the company was illegal and ordered that some of the money be repaid.

"Underperforming" assets worth more than $1 billion will be sold by Carrefour SA, the world's second-largest retailer after Wal-Mart. The company didn't identify which of the more than 6,000 stores it operates in 30 countries will be disposed of, except to say that none of them will be in France, its base. A vigorous cost-cutting program has lowered Carrefour's debt by $1.8 billion over the past business year, but sales have been stagnant. In July, it lowered its full-year growth forecast from 6 percent to 5 percent.

Charter One Financial Inc. will cut 400 of 2,500 jobs in northeastern Ohio, a downsizing equal to one previously announced in Rochester, N.Y., the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported Tuesday. Charter One's new owner, Citizens Financial Group, said in May that it expects to cut operating expenses by 22 percent. A Citizens Financial spokesman hesitated to confirm the number of layoffs since the bank anticipates adding new jobs and switching some employees to different positions.

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